A Small Hill to Die On: A Penny Brannigan Mystery (13 page)

The scratching noise was followed by another sound, this time more like a thud, and louder. Trixxi waited, poised and alert, as Penny put her hand on the latch of the door and pressed it. She felt the mechanism lift on the other side and slowly pushed the door open. Blinded by the intensity of hundreds of powerful lights and assaulted by the unmistakable, pungent smell of marijuana, she gasped, covered her mouth, and stumbled backward, slipping off the low stone step. She twisted as she tried to straighten and then felt rough hands jerking her up by the arms.

“You shouldn’t have done that, lady.”

Twenty-five

“We’ll just give those nails a moment to dry, Mrs. Jones.” Eirlys twisted the cap of the top-coat bottle closed and set it in the little basket on her treatment table, smiled at her customer, and stood up. “Excuse me a moment.” She stepped out into the hall and, stifling a yawn, walked down the hall.

“This morning seems to be going really slowly, Rhian,” she said. “Do I have one more customer or two before lunch?”

Rhian checked the bookings list on her computer. “One. And then you’re to cover the desk while I go to lunch. I won’t be long. Just want to get in a few things for the weekend.” Eirlys nodded and returned to the manicure room. “All set, then, Mrs. Jones? Shall I help you on with your coat? Mind your nails, now. Sure you don’t want a few minutes under the nail dryer?”

In her office, Victoria sighed and set down her coffee mug. She wasn’t sure what she wanted for lunch. She clicked on her computer screen to minimize the document she was reading on and brought up the Internet. She’d heard about a music festival to be held in Florence in the spring, and she was curious to see if anyone she knew would be performing.

In Llandudno, Sergeant Bethan Morgan ducked her head into DCI Davies’ office.

“I’m going to be leaving in a few minutes and just wondered if there’s anything else you need me to do before I leave,” she said. He looked up from his desk and smiled at her. “No, thanks, Bethan. Get yourself off and have a wonderful weekend.”

“Got plans, sir?”

“I’m going to visit my son and his wife. I haven’t seen them in ages, and I’ve got a feeling they want to tell me something. They’ve been asking me to come and see them for a few weeks and I really can’t put it off. Although with everything that’s going on”—he tapped the file on his desk—“this would probably be a better weekend to stay close to home.”

He twirled his pen.

“Everything ready for Operation Sparrow? Everyone in place, as far as you know? Right, well, see you Sunday night, then. We’ll meet here at seven
P.M.
sharp.” She nodded, gave him an airy wave, and was gone. Davies returned to the Ashlee Tran file, searching for something he’d overlooked that could point him in the right direction.

He scrutinized the photos taken on the small hill where Ashlee’s body had been found and then turned to the statement made by Ashlee’s brother, Tyler. A few paragraphs in, his eyes narrowed and he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. The boy’s choice of words sent a message of smug confidence with a strong underpinning of evasiveness. Davies was struck by the coldness of his words. Every fibre in the policeman’s body told him the boy knew something he was not telling. Something he knew was important but was withholding from them. But what? And why would he do that? Davies knew from long years of experience that lying by omission was as bad as, and sometimes worse than, outright deception. Both could send the investigation in the wrong direction, wasting precious time and resources.

Davies pushed himself away from his desk and stood up. He wandered over to the window and watched as menacing clouds assembled over the hilltops, hanging low and heavy in a dull, granite sky. He checked the time on his mobile. He still had to go home and pack for the overnight visit to his son’s. He calculated the time it should take to drive there and wondered if he had enough time to stop off at Ty Brith Hall to talk to the lad, Tyler, who was now spending most of his time at the Hall with his family. No, better not. That conversation needed careful handling and they’d probably get better results if it was done in the more formal setting of a police interview room. He also wanted the interview videotaped so he could review the lad’s body language.

He closed the file, slipped it into the top drawer of his desk, and shut down his computer. She was never far from his thoughts and as he pulled on his overcoat, he set aside the investigation and focused on Penny. He was wishing he’d had a chance to speak with her before he left and decided to ring her as soon as he got to his son’s house. He realized he hadn’t got her a gift for St. Dwynwen’s Day; he’d think about that on the drive to Liverpool.

Twenty-six

Penny tried to wrench her arm from the strong grasp of the Asian man, but his grip was painfully tight. He pushed her into the short passageway between the stabling area and the kennels as she held tight to Trixxi’s lead. Her heart sank as the heavy metal door clanged shut behind them.

“Who are you?” Penny demanded, pulling harder on her arm. “Let me go. You’re hurting me.” Unusual for a Labrador, known for their friendly, I-love-everybody natures, Trixxi let out a low, throaty growl and barked at him.

“Shut up, the pair of you.” He pushed her along the passageway, crushing her arm as he maneuvered her in front of him along the uneven stone flooring, and then opening a wooden door, he pushed her into a small room. He grabbed her handbag by the shoulder strap and ripped it from her, then held his hand out for her other bag, which contained her art supplies. When she didn’t move to hand it to him, he gestured to her with an impatient flap of his hand. He reached out, snatched it from her, and threw it into the corridor.

“Empty your pockets. Now.”

She pulled out a bottle of water and the banana and cereal bar.

“You can keep.”

With one last angry glare, he shut the door behind them and locked it.

With her heart pounding, she looked around in terrified disbelief. She was in what appeared to be the old tack room. Hooks at shoulder height all around the wood-paneled room, which had once held bridles, reins, and halters, were empty, as were the saddle racks beneath them. A small window set high up in the far wall let in feeble light filtered through cobwebs and dirt. The distinctive smell from the marijuana plants was less intense in here, but she knew that it was her knowledge of the plants, not the trespassing, that put her in grave danger. She told herself not to panic, to think things through, slowly and carefully. She unclipped Trixxi’s lead, put her arms around her neck, and hugged her. She was glad Trixxi hadn’t tried to attack the Asian man because if she had, Penny believed the man capable of killing her without a second thought.

A recent article in one of the Sunday papers had described in great detail the workings of a grow op—ordinary buildings turned into a nursery or hydroponics operation set up to grow marijuana plants and often owned by international criminal gangs. Private houses or commercial buildings were being converted into grow ops and they were becoming very popular because of their extreme profitability. The physical operations were dangerous. Because of the massive demand for electricity to run the lights and water to keep the plants hydrated, growers redirect the systems that bring these services into the property and tamper with the meters that measure consumption. The cost of the consumption is passed on to all consumers, and diverting electricity and tampering with electrical wiring, services usually performed by unqualified people, can lead to fires.

Re-venting the heating system to circulate air to feed the marijuana plants can circulate exhaust fumes from the furnace back into the building. Poisonous gases from the chemical nutrients used in the production of the crop can build up or have to be vented outside and released into the air.

And if all that weren’t bad enough, the article said, these illegal operations bring criminals, weapons, and violence into what were once peaceful, law-abiding communities. A spokesman from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police quoted in the article said that in some areas of Canada, like British Columbia, one in eight homicides is related to the grow op industry.

Her hands began to shake. Now she was beginning to understand why Gareth had been so reluctant to discuss the newspaper story with her. Usually, when she showed an interest in a police matter in the news he was happy to explain it, offering an example or anecdote from his own experience or thoughtful insight into how he would handle it if it were his case and what the police whose case it was were likely doing. But this time he had looked slightly uncomfortable and said nothing. And then she remembered how he had warned her against coming here. A growing suspicion nibbled at the edges of her thought process. He knows, she thought. He knows about this grow op. He knows it’s here and he knows what’s going on. At that thought, she brightened. Was it likely that the police had the property under surveillance? If so, someone could have seen her being pushed against her will into this building. Perhaps at this very moment they were planning a daring raid to rescue her. But it had all happened so fast.

Did anyone know she was here? Victoria did, but she wasn’t expecting to see her again until Monday. Gareth? He would be spending the weekend with his son and daughter-in-law in Liverpool. She looked at her watch. It was just after noon on Friday, and no one would be expecting to see her until Monday. If she lived that long.

She released her hold on Trixxi and rubbed Trixxi’s head against her side. Then she walked over to a highly polished wooden trunk pushed against the back wall and lifted the lid, releasing a potent, dusty smell that seemed to combine hay with mud. A dark green cloth with the initials GG stitched in gold lay folded up inside the trunk. She pulled it out, and from its shape and the position of the straps and ties, she recognized it as a horse blanket. Initials GG. Gladwyn Gruffydd, Emyr’s mother? Probably. Burrowing further into the box, she came across a smaller piece of material lined with sheepskin that she thought might be a saddle pad. She spread it on the floor as a bed for Trixxi. There didn’t seem to be anything else in the trunk so she closed it and then sat on it. Beside the trunk was a metal bucket with a few bits of what she supposed were oats in the bottom.

There was little or no point, she thought, in banging on the door and demanding to be let out the way trapped women always seemed to do in films. There was no one to hear her—she knew that well enough. And even if, say, Dilys Hughes just happened to be walking by, how could she possibly hear Penny yelling for help through those impossibly thick stone walls?

The main thing was not to panic. She would have to think her way out of this.

At least it was warm here in the tack room, probably because of the intense lighting needed to run the massive grow op that had been set up throughout the building. So that’s why this family was renting this property. A grow op was definitely not the sort of operation you’d expect to find in quiet, quaint North Wales and especially not Llanelen, with its gentle, prewar atmosphere. But the location was certainly secluded. No nosy neighbours to complain or poke their noses in when collectors arrived at all hours of the day and night to pick up product. No need to worry too much about security because no one ever came here.

And where there are drugs, there’s money and lots of it, she reflected. So was the nail bar a front for money laundering? Probably. It was all starting to make sense now. That was why Mai didn’t care whether the business was profitable or not. It didn’t need to be. The drugs money was run through the nail bar’s books and came out the other side on its way to an offshore account. And Mai, what was her role in all this? Was she in on the scheme? Difficult to see how she couldn’t be. If she ran the nail bar and tanning salon she had to know what the accounts looked like. Or did she? Penny thought about her involvement at the Llanelen Spa. As the general manager, Victoria was responsible for the operations and she looked after the accounts. If she was fiddling the books, would Penny know? Maybe not.

Trixxi got up and went to the door, looked back at Penny, and wagged her tail.

“You need to go out, girl.” Penny walked over to the door and banged on it. “Hey,” she yelled,”my dog needs to go out. Let us out of here.” Trixxi made little whining noises and then returned to the saddle blanket and sat down, fixing her trusting brown eyes on Penny’s face.

I’ll need to go myself before long. She thought of the bucket and hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

She eyed the window. Even if she could somehow get the window open, she’d never be able to lift Trixxi through it, and she couldn’t, wouldn’t leave Trixxi behind.

She returned to the door and bent down to look through the keyhole, but could see nothing because something was blocking her view. If the key was in the lock, she couldn’t believe her luck.

Looking closer at the lock, she realized it was one of those surprisingly solid mechanisms that used an old-fashioned skeleton key with a long cylindrical shaft and a single, minimal flat, rectangular tooth or bit. People often kept the key in the lock and just turned it to lock or unlock the door, as needed. This type of key could unlock the mechanism from either side of the door, and she’d seen on a television program once how to get the key from the outside to the inside. You just needed a piece of paper and something fairly long and thin, like the refill from a ballpoint pen. Unfortunately, the Asian man had taken away her bag of sketching materials, which contained both.

She looked around the room. There was nothing that would slide under the door for the key to land on, but there might be something in the manicure kit in her coat pocket that she could use to push the key out of the lock.

She felt in her coat pocket and pulled out the postcard. She looked at the photo of Wells Cathedral and turned it over to read the message written in the distinctive, careful handwriting of a former schoolteacher, her new friend Dorothy Martin. It was a start, but it wouldn’t provide enough landing area when she pushed the key out of its hole. But she thought she could combine it with one of the plastic dog bags she always carried with her. She pulled one out of her trouser pocket and tore it apart to create a bigger area and set the postcard on top of it. Then, kneeling and bending over, she laid the small green bag out flat, patted the card down on top of it, and gently pushed them underneath the door beneath the lock. She straightened up and, with the lock at eye level, poked at the key with the cuticle tool from the manicure kit until it fell, making a tinkling sound as it hit the stone floor on the other side of the door. A tiny bit of daylight filled the keyhole.